


Epithets

by MixerMonochrome



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, I don't think it counts as Graphic Violence, Minor Character Death, Per se, There's not really any gore, beginnings fic for Rupphire, but it's implied that it'll happen later on at least, so it's not quite shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5136488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MixerMonochrome/pseuds/MixerMonochrome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The standard life expectancy of a front line gem was a millennium at best... No gem thought Ruby or Sapphire would be any different. They had no reason to.  It was unprecedented. But oh, how wrong they were."<br/>The rise and meeting of two small legends, written for the first day of Rupphirebomb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epithets

**Author's Note:**

> I actually don't know what to write here other than the fact that I need to stop using italics so much, because having to re-italicize everything whenever I post this thing is getting confusing.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Before Earth - before _Rose_ \- Ruby and Sapphire were no strangers to fighting.  They, like the majority of their asymmetrical kin, were placed in the front lines no more than a century after their first formation.  The standard life expectancy of a front line gem was a millennium at best, with danger coming both from the enemies they fought and the oft times unstable ‘allies’ they were placed in the midst of.  No gem thought Ruby or Sapphire would be any different.  They had no reason to.  It was unprecedented.

But oh, how wrong they were.

Ruby was the first of the two to rise from the crust of her planet, awakening in a flash of light and a wave of heat.  Her hair flared about her head in a dark halo, the pupils of her eyes only a shade lighter.  Her body glowed a warm red, built with sturdy lines and smooth planes.

There were no visible malformations but for her gem - embedded in her left hand - and the fact that she stood at barely half the height of the dozens of Rubies that formed around her.  For the first few minutes, that didn't really matter.  If the other gems gave her odd looks at first, they soon shrugged it off in favor of their collective awe and curiosity at being alive.  They moved amongst each other, testing limbs and limits, leaping and running and laughing, fumbling into each other and falling into playful sparring matches.  What was a bit of a size difference in the wake of all this wonder?

That was the only time Ruby would get unconditional acceptance for a long, long, time.  When a supervisor came, they made it exceedingly plain that her offset gem was something to be ashamed of.  Before she could raise any protest, Ruby was pulled away from the collective.

In the decades and centuries after that, Ruby crossed paths frequently with other rubies.  She couldn’t be for certain whether or not any had been from her initial unearthing - the details of the memories were hazy and there were so many faces - but she stubbornly told herself that none of them were.  Not a single one of the encounters had been pleasant, and that memory was one of the few things she cherished.

Sapphire emerged a few centuries later, the moons of her planet high and the air chill.  Coloured with soft blues, hair tumbling in waves and caressing her gentle curves, a single eye sat in the centerline of her face, and it scoped the barren earth around her, noting that the only blemish upon the smooth ground was the hole she herself had formed from.

She was early, then.  How unfortunate.  She'd been hoping to meet some of her kin before being taken away.  There was still a few hours before the likely appearance of their brood's supervisor.  Sapphire ran her thumb along the facet of her gem, protruding from the palm of her right hand.  For a second, she wistfully wondered what it would have been like if she'd formed 'normally'; there had been possibilities, in the very beginning, where it could have happened.

Quickly, she discarded the thought.  There was no point brooding on what had been - her fate was set now.  She wanted to survive, and the best chance of that was to let the supervisor take her.  Fighting would get her gem crushed, running would lead to her getting poofed or cracked in too many ways to count, she couldn't rely on her sisters to protect her even if enough of them had formed by then (none would).  Her best bet was to be as unobtrusive and pliant as possible.

With a small quirk of her lips, she noted that that meant making her defects as subtle as she could.  Her size and her gem placement were fixed - nothing could be done for those - but her face was a little more manageable.  Only the barest flicker of resentment showed on her face when she manipulated her hair to grow over her eye and absent nose.  She still had a few hours left to get used to the barrier in her vision; it was for the best.

//\\\//\\\//

Both of them were put through the typical training; weapon summoning, hand-to-hand combat, survival in the wilderness, the chain of command.  They were told that the front lines were their chance for glory - their chance to rise past the defects that had pulled them from their kin.  They took it all with subtle snarls and pursed lips.  There was no redemption planned - only a momentary use until their inevitable death.  Defective gems weren’t good enough for anything more in the eyes of the upper castes.

But they didn’t want redemption in the first place.  They had given up on that within the first few years.  No, survival was the name of the game now.  How ironic that their most likely place to find it was at the front lines of an endless conquest.

Neither of them expected to be anything more than another face in the large army, but sometimes the best outcomes are hard to see until they’re right in front of you.

//\\\//\\\//

Ruby’s legacy was already well on its way by the time Sapphire joined the ranks of the front line.  There were whispers of a small red gem - flesh like fire and bones like diamond- who broke through enemy lines again and again with a ferocity matched by none.  There were stories from gems who had fought alongside her, of the searing heat and bright fire, of the craters left in the ground from nothing more than her single gauntlet-clad fist, of the barely contained fury they could see in the depths of her eyes.  This was not a gem to face off against.

There were whispers, too, that her ferocity would be her undoing.  That she wouldn’t last another two centuries at this rate.

Sapphire had a feeling they were wrong.

In her thirteenth battle, when she’d begun falling into the rhythm of true warfare, learning how to quickly parse between the flashes of her Sight and true battle to avoid as many casualties as possible, Sapphire startled upon seeing a vision of herself speeding through the throngs of combatants far more quickly than she’d thought was possible, her feet not even stopping to touch the ground.

It took her less than a minute to make that vision a reality and to put it to use.

After a decade, watching the gems she’d known for almost the whole of her admittedly short life crack and shatter around her again and again in a million different ways, Sapphire withdrew herself from any unnecessary interaction.  She still saw their deaths, sometimes, but not as often, and she didn’t feel that horrible urge to let it happen - to _make_ it happen - anymore.  It was worth it, even if she had to deal with the hurt looks they gave her sometimes, and the pit of cold resentment forming heavy within her.

It was a century before Sapphire realized that the cold had been a little more than figurative.  It’d been a hard day, with more of her death visions hitting her than normal.  She’d begun ignoring them as best she could, knowing that most of them were only faint possibilities and having more pressing matters to deal with - like the whirring rows of teeth the predominant species of this planet possessed.  When another vision came, a painfully familiar voice calling for help from somebody, anybody - Sapphire hurriedly pushed it down like the rest.  She didn’t have time for this, not with three more natives hurtling towards her.  Sapphire realized her mistake when the screaming only got louder, and with terror induced speed, she dispatched her adversaries and sped towards the source.

She arrived just in time to watch Carnelian’s arms give way, and for her body to get sucked into the gaping maw of a native.  The screaming stopped, but the high pitched sound of a gem being ground to fine powder was far from an improvement.  Sapphire stood stock still, mouth open ever so slightly as she attempted to take in what she’d just seen.  This was just a vision, just a vision.  There’s no way Sapphire wasn’t fast enough to make it in time, no way she’d do something as stupid as ignore her visions just because they were being a bit annoying.  She was better than that - disciplined.

No.  This was reality, a reality brought on by Sapphire’s own hands.  There wasn’t any use in deluding herself.  Carnelian was gone - past - and as much as Sapphire would have done to fix it, the past was set in stone.  The future, at least, was changeable.  This wouldn’t be happening again.  Not today.  Not on this front.  She would make sure to look through every vision her Sight bestowed upon her.  She’d double check; she’d triple check.  Anything.   _Anything_ to keep this from happening again.

The heavy cold bloomed within her and she blurred into motion: mouth set into a grim line, a single set of crystal-pointed knuckles glinting harshly, and wide strokes of frost trailing in her wake.

When she finally calmed down, she was only minimally surprised to see what remained of her unit standing in a loose bunch, every weapon raised uncertainly in her direction.  With feigned disinterest, Sapphire walked past them, back towards the ship they’d been sent down on.

“Let’s go.  We need to send in our sitrep to the Diamonds.”

She pretended not to notice the tremors in her hands or the discordant pulse of her gem.  She could still feel stares boring into her back, for one, and she had a distinct feeling that revealing anything but absolute calm in this moment would lead nowhere good.  And for two, she knew the tremors would fade, and that her gem would return to its steady rhythm if she just gave them time.  There really wasn’t a need to worry about them.

When she reached the ship, punching the open code into the small panel that appeared before her.  She floated along the ramp that lowered, and cast a single glance behind her.  Oh how glad she was now for the bangs that kept her eye hidden, because it had surely widened noticeably upon taking in her first coherent sight of the battlefield since Carnelian’s death.

She had assumed that the reason the fight was over was because the remaining natives had retreated when they realized they were being overwhelmed - that was normally the case, after all - and surely there had been _some_ that had gotten away, statistically.  You wouldn’t have known it from the state of the battlefield, however.  Lines of ice that Sapphire knew hadn’t been there at the onset of the battle cut sharp paths across the dirt between veritable piles of dead natives with their grey skin and wide jaws.  Half the piles seemed to have been frozen solid, and a few piles of shattered, slowly melting ice insinuated that there had been a few more as well.

No wonder her unit, who were slowly making their way towards the ship now, had been scared of her.  She was a little scared of herself; had she really done all that?  Her lips pulled together into a thin line and she retreated to her room.  A little time to let herself think seemed like a good idea right about now.

//\\\//\\\//

After that, Sapphire held herself under strict control, honing her Sight and other abilities.  She became a terror on the battlefield: quiet and efficient, leaving enemies encased in ice and dodging deadly blows with terrifying accuracy,  then striking at the perfect points to make them crumble.

It was shortly before the turn of her 300th year, after her second routine unit transfer, that she first heard the rumours beginning to circulate about her.  She’d suspected, of course, with the glances and awkward silences that would sometimes happen when she walked into a room, but she’d never actually overheard anything.  She’d done a good job at making herself unsociable, and the rumours had only started in earnest when she was already established in her second unit.  With the new transfer came an adjustment period, as most changes do, where she and her new allies would feel each other’s personalities out, seeing where they meshed and where it would be best to just leave off.  Usually, the process was a slow one, with silence being the initial state of a room, but the new unit proved somewhat different.  It was one of the newer gems, probably not even a decade out of training, who spilled the beans.  

The tiny gem, a spinel, had taken one look at her and rushed up in a flurry of maroon.  Sapphire, unused to having someone so close in a non-combat situation after almost two centuries of avoiding other gems, recoiled and summoned her weapon before her mind caught up with her.  The spinel, thankfully, was quick to back away and hold up her hands, looking surprised and a little abashed.

“Whoa!  Sorry, didn’t mean to get all up in your space there.  I was just so excited to meet you!  You’re Sapphire, right?”

Slowly, Sapphire relaxed and dissolved her weapon, looking Spinel up and down and pushing down the embarrassment lurking at the edges of her thoughts.  “I’m _a_ Sapphire.  If that’s what you’re asking.”

Spinel laughed, “Well that too.  What I meant was - are you the Sapphire that everyone’s been talking about?”

“... Elaborate.”

“The one who’s faster than lightning and quieter than ice, who took down a Kertial General singlehandedly?  The one who -”

Sapphire had a feeling this might go on for a while, “Yes.  That’s me.”

“Yes!”  Spinel jumped into the air and spun, addressing the other gems in the room, who were intently pretending to not listen into the conversation, “Did you hear that guys?  We’ve got Sapphire in our unit!” She turned back to Sapphire with a wide grin, “This is going to be so awesome!  Come on, let’s sit down and talk.”

“I actually-” Sapphire’s left hand was promptly grabbed, and she was led to a couch before she could finish her protest.  She was about to get up anyways - she’d done it before, after all, but something in Spinel’s face made her bite back a sigh and relax into the seat.  She hoped this wouldn’t become a running theme as Spinel leaned in conspiratorially.

“So… have you worked with the Blazing Star?” She asked, eyes sparkling with intrigue.

“The what?”

“You know, the Blazing Star? Firebrand? The Eternal Flame?” When Sapphire didn’t do much more than stare at the mentions of their names, Spinel made a sound of acute distress.  “How could you not know who I’m talking about?  She’s practically the poster gem of the front lines!”  Spinel paused again, waiting for some form of reaction, then deflated a little when there was none.  “She’s a ruby.  Uses fire? Makes craters with only a gauntlet? Anything?”

Memories of familiar rumours rose from the depths of her mind.  So the ruby had survived after all, and she was doing pretty well for herself, it seemed.

“Oh, her.  I haven’t had the pleasure.”  Sapphire said easily, then continued; unknowingly interrupting Spinel as a question came to mind.  “What did you call her, again?”

Spinel’s eyes lit, “The Blazing Star!  Isn’t it a cool sounding name?”

“But why not just Ruby?  That is her name, after all.”

“But she’s not the _only_ ruby.  Like - “ Spinel’s voice trailed for a moment, and Sapphire was about to start getting worried when the red gem’s eyes widened and she continued with far more animation, “Like earlier!  When I asked you if you were Sapphire and you said you were _a_ sapphire.  We should give you a title!  Like the Blazing Star has!”  She began bouncing up and down in her seat, “I mean - you’re famous enough for it, and it’ll make it easier to figure out who we’re talking about and it’ll just make all the stories sound so much _cooler_ and - “

Spinel rocketed to her feet and addressed the room as a whole again, much to Sapphire’s bewilderment.  “We should give Sapphire a title!”  Spinel then darted from gem to gem, seeming to be deep in planning… something.  Sapphire wasn’t quite sure what, but she was certain that it would keep Spinel occupied for quite some time.  Quietly, she left for her own quarters.

Within a few years, the stories of Sapphire became the stories of the Hail Bringer, of the Flash Freeze, of Frostbite, and they were frequently told alongside the tales of the Blazing Star.  Their battle prowess was hailed, the mysteries of their pasts speculated (they were both secretly diamond hybrids who snuck into the front lines to help the plight of their people despite their progenitor’s wishes), and most quietly but reverently of all, the survival rate in their assigned units was whispered like a prayer.  Two to three gems lost in as many battles, when it was more common to lose up to five in a single battle otherwise.  Every unit desperately wanted to have them transferred in not just for the thrill of it, but for the safety.

As the centuries trudged on, gems waited with anticipation for the day that the two would be placed in the same unit.  It was bound to happen at some point, they would say.  The Diamonds couldn’t be ignorant about their two largest assets.  Not when they were so unscrupulously using their images and stories to bring more gems to the front lines.

It was only a matter of time.

//\\\//\\\//

Ruby was on edge - had been for the past decade or so and became increasingly more so with every day.  She knew the life expectancy of the front lines as well as the next gem, and she was getting closer and closer to her thousandth year.  She’d gotten through everything so far with sheer force of will and force in general, and maybe some dumb luck.  But the fates couldn’t keep smiling on her forever, and something in her gut was telling her that her time was coming soon.

She didn’t like the sound of that.

There were some new transfers today.  A total of eight gems switching units.  Ruby had already said her goodbyes to the four from her unit, and she wasn’t feeling too keen on meeting their replacements.  Not yet at least.  So as the time for the transfer approached, she stood and excused herself from the lounge.  She’d meet them on the battlefield in short order, anyways.  Their ship was enroute to a new planet for conquest, Iltan, and they were projected to land in two to three days.

Ruby’s hands tightened into fists as she paced the confines of her personal quarters.  Maybe that’s what she needed.  A good fight would help get rid of the roiling uncertainty in her gut.  She was going to keep surviving.  Just like she’d vowed from day one.  She was going to stick her success in the Diamond Authority’s collective face and wave it like a battle flag.  She was the Blazing Star, the Fire Storm, the _Eternal Flame_ \- and she wasn’t going down yet.  Not by a longshot.

//\\\//\\\//

Ruby’s conviction held until they were embroiled in battle.  There were heaving swarms of the Iltarans here: small, many-jointed creatures swathed in brightly coloured plating and wicked blade-like appendages.  They were easy to pick-off individually, but they worked in well-practiced group attacks that left barely any room to take out one before you were distracted by the next one.

Ruby had been in many tight situations, however, and once she’d realized that the creatures were _extremely_ flammable, she took little time in taking out group after group of them.  The problem was that they just _kept coming_.  These things didn’t seem to know the meaning of giving up, and when she’d taken down one, five more came burrowing up from the ground.  Not to mention that the other gems in her unit were having a markedly more difficult time of it than herself, and she’d broken off from her own fights on more than one occasion to swoop in and pull a topaz or aquamarine out from under a writhing pile of bright, screaming creatures.

But she hadn’t caught sight of their new additions yet.  She hoped that meant they were holding their own, and not that they’d been poofed or worse already.  Frowning at the thought, she rushed towards another rising wall of Iltarans, flames licking across her skin and a war cry building in her throat, when something very blue shot past her in a rush of cold air.  Ruby’s fire faltered and faded, looking on in stunned disbelief as the blue gem - a sapphire, she noted, though she couldn’t have known from the blurry glimpse she’d caught earlier - rocketed into the base of the Iltaran formation.  Ice bloomed across their ranks like a deadly flower, with the point of impact at the very center.  A wave of cool air rushed outwards, pulling at Ruby’s uniform and tugging her hair.  

She’d heard the stories, of course, of the up and coming sapphire who whispered death with the lips of winter, of combatants thrice her size falling within seconds under precise and practiced blows to vulnerable areas found with amazing speed.  Ruby had been pleased to hear of another gem giving the Authority the figurative finger, thriving in the place meant to shatter them, and protecting the gems in her unit, no matter how dispassionate the stories said she looked while doing it.  No gem would do that if all they cared about was the thrill.  Ruby breathed deep, tasting the smooth chill with a reverence before a grin split her face and she turned, ready to leap back into the fray.

If the Hail Bringer was on their side, she had nothing to worry about.

Ruby dispatched five more groups of Iltarans, leaving only smoldering piles of ash behind, when she felt the earth shake.  Ruby idly registered that their enemies had all stopped their assault and were - in fact, running away with alarming speed.  When the ground began to groan and rumble, the shaking increasing in speed and intensity, the pieces clicked into place.

“Run!” She yelled as loudly as she could, bolting for the ship and doing her best to gather any gem she passed, “Something big’s coming and we can’t just be standing here!  Weapons out, eyes open, but _run_!”

The gems around her bolted into action, running and stumbling, glancing over their shoulders with wide eyes and bated breath.  Ruby quickly glanced over their forms, trying to count how many of her unit was with her.  She didn’t like the odds for this mission.  Not with… whatever was coming being on its way.  There were still a few gems missing, including the sapphire, and Ruby cursed as she skid to a stop, waving the other gems onwards.  “Keep going! I’ll round everyone else up.  Someone tell the Diamonds what’s happening and start the ship.  We’re leaving as soon as possible!”

She looked back and picked out the gems still straggling behind - a good dozen of them, it seemed.  A majority of them were badly injured, limping or being carried by other, more able-bodied, gems.  The sapphire walked steadily beneath the weight of an ammolite whose gem was set near enough to their center-line to be more than twice Sapphire’s size.  Ruby started forward to help when Sapphire stiffened and threw the ammolite forward, where she stumbled into another set of gems and just barely kept her balance.

Ruby would’ve been angry about that, had she not recognized the stance Sapphire had fallen into.  Something had tipped her off, and whatever was coming - was coming _fast_.

Ruby picked up the pace, shouting encouragement to the straggling gems while positioning herself strategically between them and what she could now see from the cracks and fissures forming would be their adversary’s exit point.  She glanced briefly at the gem beside her, whose lips were pulled into a determined line as frost began to creep abstract designs across the ground.

“Let’s hope what the rumours say about you are true, Frostbite.”  She said as she sank lower into her stance, gauntlet ready and air waving in a hazy silhouette around her.  “Because this looks like it’s going to be one hell of a fight.”

There was a silence, punctuated by cracks growing with sharp sounds, before a voice deeper and smoother than Ruby had expected replied.

“Just try and keep up, Firebrand.”

Ruby’s head snapped around, taking in the playful tilt of Sapphire’s lips before a grin stretched between her own.

The ground broke with a cacophonous boom, almost drowned out by the shrieking cry of the veritable tower of a creature that burst from it, limb after multi-jointed limb sporting blades longer and wider than her body rising from beneath the crust.  Ruby felt her fire ignite entirely at what could only register as challenges from both her ally and enemy.  She loved challenges.

"I'll have you know." She started, tensing her calves and shifting her weight to the balls of her feet, "Out of all the titles I've been given-"  She rose her fists, fire blazing brighter as the thrill of battle overtook her, “I _much_ prefer -” Ruby launched herself into the air, striking down with brutal force in the center of a limb, feeling the carapace crumble and burn beneath her before it severed from the whole and dropped to the ground, Ruby following soon after with a satisfied look, gemmed fist propped against her side as she locked eyes with Sapphire.  “ _Eternal Flame._ ”

It was only a little disheartening when Sapphire snorted out a giggle instead of looking properly impressed, but before Ruby could do much more than blush indignantly, a bladed appendage landed between them, embedding itself a good two meters into the ground before it pulled back.  They exchanged shocked looks before quickly sobering.  Right, battle before banter.  There were gems to keep safe.

Ruby cast a look over her shoulder as Sapphire darted into the air, noting with relief that the stragglers were making good progress.  They just had to hold off this… _thing_ for another few minutes, then they’d be able to fall back.

“Move!”

Ruby looked up and cursed - rolling quickly to the side and then sprinting to avoid getting crushed by a falling limb.  “Watch where you’re throwing those things!” She called, then vaulted from limb to limb, ducking and weaving past flailing blades and setting each subsequent perch ablaze.  The Iltaran writhed madly, and Ruby nearly fell off on many occasions, but she finally made it to where she could see Sapphire systematically obliterating its limbs joint by joint.  “Need any help there?” Ruby asked, already pulling apart one of the arms as she asked.

“Good, you’re here.” Was the somewhat breathless reply, “Tell the ship to leave.”

Ruby jolted around in her confusion, her next hit sloppy and ineffective, “Tell them _what_?!  If you haven't noticed, we’re not on the ship right now.  If it goes, we’re not going with it.”

Sapphire sent another limb tumbling to the ground, face impassive, “And we have about a minute until this thing notices that we’re not the only things it can try to mince.”

With another curse, Ruby realized she was right and fumbled for her communicator.  Ducking under an incoming blade, she pressed the button and spoke quickly.  “Variscite?”

“Are you two on your way?  We have to get going soon, things are getting a little too hot in here.”  The gem on the other line - Variscite - sounded worried; voice trembling and a half-octave higher than normal.  It only cemented Ruby’s resolve as she spoke.

“Variscite.  Get that ship off the ground.”

“Get - _What_?  But you’re still -”  Ruby felt the body beneath her still, and alarms rang shrill in her head.

“Do it now!”

There was a frightened squeak, and scrabbling on the other end of the communicator.  Then the engines of the ship roared to life.  Ruby let out a breath and spoke again, much more calmly.  “Stay in beacon distance.  If we beat this thing, I’ll call you back down.  If we don’t…” Ruby’s mouth pursed into a thin line.  

“Just - don’t wait for more than a few hours.”

She turned off the comm before Variscite could reply, and returned all of her attention to the tension she could feel winding up in the limb beneath her. “Oh no you don’t.” She muttered, pulling her gauntlet-covered fist back and letting it fly into the joint, grinning at the cracking sound - shards of carapace grazing past her face and igniting. “I’m the one you’re fighting with, buddy.  Don’t go running off just yet.”

With renewed shrieking, the Iltaran giant lurched forward, hurtling towards the rapidly retreating ship.  Ruby cursed and frantically began ripping at whatever she could get a hold of, setting place after place ablaze, but this thing was just so _big_ and it was ignoring her fires like they were _nothing_.  She needed a plan and she needed it fast.  This thing wasn’t getting to that ship - no matter what it’d take.

With a sharp sound, a wall of ice formed a few meters in front of them, and Ruby heard Sapphire’s voice from somewhere above her.

“Aim for the top!”

After a second of confusion, Ruby realized what Sapphire had planned and blinked.  Shrugging, she leapt up a few more limbs, gaining momentum.  “Hope this works.” She muttered to herself, launching herself upwards at the ice and turning mid-air so that she was facing her opponent, eyes narrowed at its forehead and limbs tensed.  Yelling with the effort, she pushed against the ice with enough force to shatter it, funneling her weight and fire into her fist as she came crashing down on their enemy's face.

Now thoroughly unbalanced, the creature wavered in its forward charge and swayed, crashing towards the ground with a garbled, wavering screech that Ruby would have resented had she not been trying valiantly not to do the same, only just realizing how far a fall she was in for.  Add the chaotically swinging blade-arms and Ruby was well and certainly peeved at herself for not thinking this through.

Rolling in on herself, hand tucked protectively in as many layers of her projection as possible, Ruby only hoped that her gem wouldn’t crack on impact.

When her fall abruptly stopped, without any of the jolting pain she’d expected, Ruby had to take a moment to really believe it.

“You can uncurl now, if you want.” Sapphire said, far closer than Ruby had expected.

Quickly opening her eyes, Ruby realized that Sapphire had caught her mid-fall, and they were now slowly descending to the ground.  Heat rose to her face and she groaned, burying her face in her hands.  Some gem warrior she was. “You could have told me you were planning that.”

Sapphire made a commiserating sound in the back of her throat.  “Sorry.  I’m not used to joint combat, yet.”

Ruby pushed past enough of her mortification to be surprised. "Oh, right.   We both kind of had the solo thing going on."

Sapphire smirked, "I guess you could put it that way."  The duo touched ground, and Sapphire placed Ruby on her feet before summoning her weapon again in a flash of light,  "But I have a feeling we'll be getting used to teamwork from here on out."

"Is that your rumoured Sight, speaking?"  Ruby settled into her fighting stance with pleasure, eyeing the slowly rising creature before her with a defiant glint in her eye. "I'll be honest, I chalked that one up to crazy conjecture, right next to you being a blue diamond gemling.”

“Who says I’m not?” Sapphire returned, though Ruby couldn’t see her face, feeling the customary tunnel-vision of battle rise up and block out anything but the multi-coloured target rising jerkily from the ground.  She had just enough focus to spare one last quip, scoffing.

“And I’m Pink Diamond’s secret protege.”  She bounced readily from foot to foot, sparks and embers flying from her pores with every movement, “Either way.  We won’t have any teamwork to work on if we don’t make it out of this fight alive.”

Ruby felt the cool rush of air, heard the shifting ground as Sapphire fell into her own stance, heard the hiss of steam as their elements met between them.  It grew, billowing and diffusing into their surroundings, blurring the edges between where one thing started and the next began.  The silence was expectant, punctuated by the clattering movement of joints.

“Then we’d better get started.”  Sapphire declared, darting forward.  With an exhilarated laugh, Ruby headed after her, ready to take on anything.

//\\\//\\\//

In the aftermath, when the two gems lay exhausted but satisfied a few meters away from a slowly blinking distress beacon, Ruby laboriously pulled herself into a sitting position, grunting at the aches and pains.  When she’d properly risen, she began scooting closer to the prone form of her companion.

“Hey,” She said, drawing Sapphire’s attention as she drew near, “I don’t think I ever got to properly greet you.  I was having a bad day when you and the others transferred in.”  Thrusting out her right hand, she grinned sheepishly, “Nice to meet you, I’m Ruby.”

With a slow smile, Sapphire took her hand.  “Sapphire, and the pleasure is mine.  I’ve heard a lot about you, over the years.”

Ruby beamed, “Likewise.”


End file.
